Do All Bland Movies Make Profits?

WordNet - Cite This Source

bland
adjective
1.	lacking taste or flavor or tang; "a bland diet"; "insipid hospital food"; "flavorless supermarket tomatoes"; "vapid beer"; "vapid tea"
2.	lacking stimulating characteristics; uninteresting; "a bland little drama"; "a flat joke"
3.	smoothly agreeable and courteous with a degree of sophistication; "he was too politic to quarrel with so important a personage"; "the manager pacified the customer with a smooth apology for the error" [syn: politic]

Here's a feature by the safest blandest studio in history:

Here's a "safe" cartoon movie starring an extremely bankable star:





Here are many more safe pictures.















Marc is probably not the only one to think that:
"Being bland is a strategy big studios use to guarantee audiences won't hate their product.
Thus guaranteeing a profit will be made."






Now in the last couple decades I seem to remember lots of bland cartoon movies that flopped. I quickly searched the web and found a few that made a lot less than they cost-and that's not counting the hundreds of millions spent on marketing.

I'm sure I left quite a few out, so help me out in the comments and link to some I forgot.

FROM-WIKIPEDIA:
I copied the following articles from Wikipedia, so you could see that some films made money and some didn't -regardless of whether they are bland or not.

FoxANIMATION-DON BLUTH

Fox Animation Studios was a short-lived traditional animation studio, a division of 20th Century Fox, headed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The department was designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation, which had phenomenal success in the early-1990s with the releases of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

The studio's output was not as successful as the Disney films were. Only one of its two theatrical releases, Anastasia, turned a profit. The other theatrical Fox Animation Studios production, Titan A.E., made only USD$9,376,845 in its opening weekend—on an estimated budget of $75,000,000—and the studio was shut down as a result.

DON BLUTH

An American Tail (1986) and The Land Before Time (1988) did well in theaters and became animation classics. Each of these films launched a line of direct-to-video sequels, none of which Bluth had any involvement with. Although many of Bluth's fans loved his next film, All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), it flopped, as Disney's groundbreaking film The Little Mermaid was released the same year, but it still became a cult classic. By the end of the decade and through the 1990s, Bluth films such as Rock-A-Doodle, Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park, and The Pebble and the Penguin had dropped significantly when it came to box office returns. Bluth scored another hit with Anastasia (1997), which grossed US$140 million worldwide in part because it used well-known Hollywood stars as its voice talent and stuck closer to long-proven Disney formulas: a sassy and resourceful princess driven to become more than she is, a cruel and conniving villain who uses dark magic, a handsome and endearing love interest, and a comic-relief sidekick.

DREAMWORKS - THE SUCCESSOR TO FILMATION
Dreamworks is the big budget studio with the low-budget sensibility. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve creatively what Filmation spent 5 bucks on.

For years they spent and spent on 2d spectacular bland movies and no one seemed to notice. They finally hit by fluke with Shrek in CG, but has that made up for all the money they spent in their history of extravagant gambing with blandness?

DreamWorks animated films
Traditionally animated films (1998-2003)	The Prince of Egypt (1998) • The Road to El Dorado (2000) • Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) • Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
Films produced with Aardman Animations (2000-2006)	(these are not part of my bland list-jk) Chicken Run (2000) ;• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) • Flushed Away (2006)
Computer-animated films (1998-present)	Antz (1998) • Shrek (2001) • Shrek 2 (2004) • Shark Tale (2004) • Madagascar (2005) • Over the Hedge (2006) • Shrek the Third (2007)

1997 - 2003: The rise and fall of Warner Bros. Feature Animation

Warner Bros., as well as several other Hollywood studios, moved into feature animation following the success of Disney's The Lion King in 1994. Max Howard, a Disney alumnus, was brought in to head the new division, which was set up in two studios: one in Sherman Oaks near the television studio, and the other in nearby Glendale. ^[2] Warner Bros. Feature Animation proved an unsuccessful venture, as four of the five films it produced failed to earn money during their original theatrical releases. The first of Warners' animated features was Space Jam (1996), a live-action/animation mix which starred NBA basketball star Michael Jordan opposite Bugs Bunny (Jordan had previously appeared with the Looney Tunes in a number of Nike commercials). Directed by Joe Pytka (live-action) and Bruce W. Smith & Tony Cervone (animation), Space Jam proved to be a success at the box office. Animation production for Space Jam was primarily done at the new Sherman Oaks studio, although much of the work was outsourced to animation studios around the world.

Following Space Jam's success, Warner Bros. Feature Animation continued production on its next feature, Quest for Camelot (1998), which proved an unsuccessful release. The third Warner Bros. animated feature, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999), was not a commercial success, although it received rave reviews and performed well with test audiences. The Iron Giant would eventually became a modern cult classic. The studio's next film, Osmosis JonesTom Sito and Piet Kroon completed the animation long before the live-action segments, directed by Bobby & Peter Farrelly and starring Bill Murray, were begun. The resulting film was not a box office success, although Warners did produce a relatedSaturday morning cartoon, Ozzy and Drix (2002-2003) for its WB broadcast network. (2001) was another animated/live action mix which suffered through a troubled production. Directors

Following the releases of The Iron Giant and Osmosis Jones the feature animation staff was scaled back, and the entire animation staff - feature and television - were moved to the larger Sherman Oaks facility. The final Warner Bros. Feature Animation production was another live-action/animation mix, Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), which was meant to be starting point for a reestablishment of the Looney Tunes brand, including a planned series of new Looney Tunes theatrical shorts.

After Back in Action, directed by Joe Dante (live action) and Eric Goldberg (animation), failed at the box office, production was shut down on the new Looney Tunes shorts and the feature animation unit was dissolved.

Two TV series based loosely upon the Looney Tunes property, Baby Looney Tunes2002-2004) and Loonatics Unleashed (2005-present) have assumed the place of the original shorts on television. (

Richard Rich
animation director

Filmography: Director

• Muhammad: The Last Prophet (2002)
• The Trumpet of the Swan (2001)
• The Scarecrow (2000; V)
• The King and I (1999)
• The Swan Princess (1994)
• The Swan Princess II: Escape From Castle Mountain (1997)
• The Swan Princess III and the Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure (1998; V)
• The Black Cauldron (1985)
• The Fox and the Hound (1981)

MY COMMENTS:

Personally, I think there are many factors that might affect the success or failure of a movie. Marketing, having a brand name luck...Blandness doesn't affect it at all. In an age of blandness when no one offers up any competition-like we have today, then some bland movies have to be successful- because Moms are always going to take kids to kid movies, whether they are good or bad.

They pick the brand name kid movies first. That used to be Disney, now it's Pixar. The rest of the Disney/Pixar wannabees make equally bland pictures and some do well, most don't.

IT'S A COMPLETE CRAPSHOOT.

I think this method of making movies is hugely risky and irresponsible. Most of the movies cost in the hundreds of millions to produce. That in itself is a crazy risky venture that no sane businessman would enter into.

NO, people don't make bland films on purpose: Bland people make bland films, period. It's the only kind they CAN make.

It would make a hell of a lot more business sense to spend less money-which would be easy, because most of the money in animated features goes to stuff that has nothing to do with entertainment:

Crowd scenes
Spectacle
Live Action Camera Moves
Too many lead characters
Ridiculously costly special effect like "realistic water". (I can turn on my tap for free and get realistic water, but who would that entertain?")
Live Action Star Salaries

What would be much less risky is to spend a third of what they spend now per picture, hire proven creative talent and let them entertain. That would be "safe". People will always want real entertainment made by actual talented entertainers. It is human nature. They only accept the bland because that is all they are given anymore.

The safest project I ever worked on is Ren and Stimpy. It cost around 6 million bucks and brought in a billion bucks or more. That happened in the last age of blandness and changed things slightly - for awhile.

All we did was make common sense entertainment for kids. We gave them what we knew that kids want. No market research, no focus testing, no marketing budget. We merely entertained. There was only one executive and she encouraged our natural entertaining abilities.

Then they took it over, spent way more money on it, killed it and it took them another 10 years and billions of dollars in non hits, piles of executives, market testing and more waste until they finally got another one. That was a very risky, illogical, crapshoot way to go.

Marc, in his Defense Of Blandness Post,

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/08/defense-of-blandness-by-marc-deckter.html

actually changed his argument halfway to a defense of Imitation, which is an altogether different subject. Maybe I will argue against that idea next.

Here's Jerry Beck's great resource if you want to see what animated movies have been made:

http://www.animatedmovieguide.com/

Stock Disney Characters - The bland lead -UP FOR TESTING PURPOSES ONLY

Does this kid have any of the ingredients that you need to make up an individual character? Like:

A Specific Design
A Unique Voice (an extinct concept)
A Specific Personality
Specific Mannerisms
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-makes-character-character-pt-1.html#comments

DISNEY'S LONELY WORLD OF SIX CHARACTERS

Disney characters belong in a category by themselves.

They are neither realistic specific individuals culled from observation of human nature, nor are they imaginative creations from a cartoonist's mind.

They are creatures in limbo. Neither real nor cartoon.

Most Disney characters have one simple personality trait and a visual gimmick to help us see it. Tramp leads with his butt, Sneezy sneezes, Captain Hook sneers, Smee wiggles his fingers, etc.

The odd one even might have 2 traits although I'm struggling to think of one that does. These one and maybe 2 trait characters have been recycled for decades by animators and executives whose only influence seems to be other Disney cartoons or Disney imitators.

It's as if there is a group of people who live in a tent somewhere in the middle of the earth and have no contact with the upper world. They have never seen real humans interacting, so can't caricature real human psychology in its infinite variations. They have also never seen any other artists' characters or interpretations of humanity. They have only other Disney and Disney imitations to study. Actually, in the last 20 years, they have started to be influenced by Saturday Morning cartoon characters, so now we have a strange mix of stock Disney with stock Filmation characters.


For decades, we've have endless repetitions of a small handful of stock stylized cliched characters. Why is this so?

It all started with Walt Disney himself. It took him years to get to the point where his characters evolved even one superficial trait. His first star character had not a single trait.

DISNEY CHARACTER 1 - THE LEAD BLAND

Mickey is The Ultimate Bland Character

His appeal completely depends on how cute the individual artists can draw such simple shapes.

He's made of circles and ovals and has no personality.

He doesn't even have a distinct voice. It's just Walt in falsetto-which sounds exactly like anyone else doing a falsetto.

He's very cute though and is a good character to train your youngest kids to understand cartoons with.He makes a good logo.

Bland Evolves From Mice To Boys

Here's a puppet that longs to be a real boy.

The drawings are very well constructed but there is no design.

It's not a specific puppet and it doesn't have a personality.

He has a mildly distinct voice, unlike the later generations he spawned.
This basic generic boy design has been in continuous use for 6 decades now...

Pinocchio turns into a "real boy"Peter Pan instructs a group of different sized versions of himself.

Milt Kahl Perfects The Bland Boy LeadAdd some angles and you get this modified generic boy design, using very strong construction and clever proportions.

It's very good drawing but suggests nothing unique about the character

he is merely a well constructed symbol of "boy". Any boy.

The Disney boy was never this well drawn again...

How Many Times Can We Use The Same Kahl Boy?tone him down and re-use him

After you take out the one thing that made the character worth watching...the good drawing, and all that's left is the blandness.

None of these characters have a personality or a unique look, nor a unique voice - nothing to make him a character. It might as well be a talking stick with a wig.

Decade after decade the stick gets more and more watered down.

add some Don Bluth influence

...sometimes he's even a girl

here's what the bland boy/girl becomes when you take away the good drawing and construction...
a Saturday morning cartoon version of Pinocchio in drag.

Again...Note that the bland fish is the same "design" as the bland boy in drag.

Milt Kahl Boy And His Robot

Milt Kahl seems to have had a lot of assistants, each of whom are the only true purveyors of his legacy.

Iwao Takamoto was once Milt Kahl's assistant and did his own version of "Wart". This TV version actually looks better than most of the expensive quality theatrical versions from the next group of Kahl assistants that followed.

Modern Version Of Bland Lead BoyIn the 80s Disney had an influx of Saturday Morning cartoon artists and influences, and the principles that held together the classic Disney cartoons began to melt away.

Take the same basic generic design and add uncomfortable proportions and use vague shapes for the details...

Here's a movie that has 2 bland lead characters. Once in rodent form, and then again in human form.

Remy

Nondescript in design (a realistic rat with googly eyes) and in personality.

(Character description from the Ratatouille website)

This description does not say anything about the character's personality. It tells you he can smell well and that he has a dream. The Rat tells you that himself many times in the movie.

When he runs on all fours like a real rat it's amazingly animated. When he stands on 2 legs and acts, he acts just like every Disney character from the last 30 years, not like an individual.

Linguini

Here's a Disney bland boy that brags in the movie about how bland he is. And he gets the girl anyway. The Sassy one.

The design is slightly different than the regular Disney boy. He has a big nose now and no jaw. That probably took a lot of guts to make those changes , but it made him even wimpier than the regular bland lead. The expressions and gestures are still the same as every Disneyesque character, whether boy, girl, man or rat. He still acts like the girl in Rescuers - with a bit of Medusa thrown in.

I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen a movie where every character actually tells you what their personalities are-even the one that admits to not having one.


Disney wanted you to know what each of his characters' single trait was. He named each character after his one trait to be sure you got it. Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy etc...

But he also wrote scenes that demonstrated what their characters' simple personalities were.

Now the movies are so unsure of whether the story is carrying itself, that they have the characters tell you not only everything they do (exposition) but...who they are. I don't think there is even a word for that yet.

But it's completely acceptable, even to the critics whom the movie calls worthless.

(Character description from the Ratatouille website)

Of course having bland characters in animated movies is not a handicap. Not while every other movie is equally bland. Moms still take their kids to animated movies to see talking animals and humans with big heads.

I just want to make the point that they aren't going because of the rich personalities or story. These movies must have some other attributes that bring people in. For now, I'm just focusing on personality and character.

Why do bland characters exist in the first place?

What is the purpose of characters with no distinctive traits?

I have a theory that I don't totally believe. Most animated features want to outspend the competition. The films are built on special effects, spectacle, details, crowds and a showing off of how much money they can burn. With that kind of story maybe strong characters would distract the audience from the impressive flying money.

Maybe the film makers think you need a central character with no distinctive traits so that you can piggy back him through the movie and experience the expensive special effects, wobbly cameras and spectacle through him.

You project your personality onto the blank slate and go on a roller coaster ride.

I personally think that is a rotten excuse to have a bland character and to tell you the truth I doubt that's what the makers of these pictures have in mind.

Why are there blands then if it's not on purpose? Because the cartoon makers don't actually think about what they are doing or why. They just do it by rote. I doubt they even realize these characters are bland. They just have watched so many Disney, Bluth and Pixar movies growing up, that they automatically absorb the stock formulas and repeat them robotically when they get their chance to make a film.

Marc Deckter, on the other hand gives them more credit than that. He thinks they are completely aware of the blandness they wring and that it's on purpose.

Next thrilling post:

Marc Deckter has a scientific explanation for bland characters in film and cartoons. (similar to his defense of Muzak)

Followed by:

The Disney Evil Homosexual

Pete Emslie Starts To Solve The Bland Problem

If you are going to do "realistic" type stories in animation (I don't know why anyone would want to to, but that's all they seem to do), then you ought to learn something from live action. Real people are unique; they aren't all clones of each other like you see in animated features.

Here Pete Emslie took a bunch of the real child actors I featured a couple posts ago
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/live-action-blands.html#comments
and did caricatures of them in an animatable style. (by keeping the details to a minimum and giving them some construction)


Pete's caricatures still have a somewhat Disney-esque look to them (without being all out Cal Arts style), all the kids have been cutesified, but it's a great first step towards breaking free from formula cartoon designs.

If I had really talented artists like Pete and some others, I would make them compete with each other to keep refining their characters and making them more and more specific-and combining different characteristics of different kids until we had something really unique and cartoony, so we weren't merely copying live action characters.

Some could be on the cute side, some on the funnier side. Variety and distinction is the key.

At Pete's site he explains in detail what his thoughts were:
http://cartooncave.blogspot.com/2007/07/bland-be-banned.html

As I said, if I was making a reality based animated feature, I would keep exaggerating and refining and doing variations of the designs until they become more and more specific and alive.

HOW "DEVELOPMENT" KILLS IDEAS

What usually happens instead in a feature studio, is the producers and executives keep shaving off all the unique parts of designs and personalities until the characters end up being the same old faceless, personality-less cartoon stereotypes.

Harald Siepermann explains that creative process here:

Harald Siepermann's Clayton gets toned down by the Disney process

A Defense of Blandness - by Marc Deckter

MARC DECKTER

Marc Deckter has the makings of a top Hollywood animation executive. He's figured out how they try to rationally justify what they do every day by amphibian instinct.

He has concocted an executive-style argument for blandness and through the goodness of his heart has agreed to share it with the unwashed masses that Hollywood loves to bilk.

I just want you to know that Marc himself hates blandness and likes only the cartooniest of cartoons. In fact anything that tries to sneak in a story or inspirational message or tells him it's ok to be the best Marc Deckter that he can be completely enrages him. The other day, he gave me his review of the latest monstrously expensive bland feature and it wasn't pretty.

Marc is one of the good ones.
But he does love defending the rights of the insincere, lame and tasteless.

So far he has come to the aid of poor misunderstood industries like McDonald's, Rap and Muzak. He hasn't defended Christian Rock yet, but I'm confident he is working up his arguments.

Today he rescues Animated Features.

THE DEFENSE OF BLANDNESS

by Marc


Being bland is a strategy big studios use to guarantee audiences won't hate their product.
Thus guaranteeing a profit will be made.

This is not an argument about making good entertainment - it is about being a safe studio.

This strategy is not good for making audiences love your work, it's only good at making audiences not hate your work. This is an important distinction.

BLAND IS SAFE

- with a generic/bland character, you don't have to worry about your audience hating the character, because there is not enough substance to hate. It'd be like hating a blank piece of paper. What is there to dislike?

Once your character starts making opinions and having specific characteristics, some people may like the character - and some people might not. So you have immediately created a potential for losing some of your audience.



BIG STUDIOS NEED TO GUARANTEE THEIR MOVIES ARE GOING TO MAKE BIG BUCKS

- the studios are investing a lot of money into these features. And the investors want a guarantee that they will make their money back. The studio can't afford to have their features flop. So what's the safest way to guarantee financial success?

1. copy a subject that has already been proven succesful. CG bug movies are popular? Let's make another one. The mom in the video store looking to buy her kids a movie to watch will remember she liked one bug movie, and she'll buy another one. And another one. And another one....

2. use pre-existing characters that already have a fanbase. Scooby Doo. Garfield. Alvin and the Chipmunks.

3. make characters that are difficult to dislike. The more bland and generic a character is, the less there is to dislike. Look at Mickey Mouse. His personality is like a blank piece of paper - there's nothing there. And look how popular he STILL is! I see people wearing Mickey Mouse t-shirts at least once a week. You might not love Mickey, but I'll bet you don't hate him - there's nothing to hate.

CREATIVITY AND EXPERIMENTATION IS RISKY

If you are actually creative and experiment with your art, you are taking a risk. People may love your product, but there is also the risk that they will not love it. And a big studio just can't afford to take that kind of risk.

So the big studio keeps their eyes on the smaller studios - the ones that are experimenting - and then when a smaller studio has success, the big studio will superficially copy their experiment and make a guaranteed profit.

So you see, I'm not defending blandness as an artistic choice - but as a smart economical choice on the part of a big studio that is investing millions into these features.

Now the argument, of course, is that if a big studio released a creative and not-bland feature, everyone would love it. Well maybe - but maybe not. But there is always a GUARANTEED audience (guaranteed profit) being safe.

IN CONCLUSION

Basically my point is that it is not idiotic that these big studios want to play it safe.

Big studios with Big Budgets cannot risk Big Failures. It's as simple as that.

HOLES IN THIS THEORY

The hole in this theory, of course, is that there are plenty of bland films that were not great successes. John has explained to me that there were tons of Disney rip-offs in the 90's that all failed (Ferngully, etc...) and did not make profits.


But in the past 10 years or so, the bland theory seems to be ringing true. I guess we can't trust these numbers 100%, but if they're even close to being accurate, its pretty obvious how profitable the bland theory is:

CG Bug Movies

A Bug's Life (Pixar, 1998)
Budget $120,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $162,798,565 44.8%
+ Foreign: $200,600,000 55.2%
= Worldwide: $363,398,565


Antz (Dreamworks, 1998)
Budget $105,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $90,757,863 52.8%
+ Foreign: $81,000,000 47.2%
= Worldwide: $171,757,863


The Ant Bully (Warner Brothers, 2006)
Budget $50,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $28,142,535 51.3%
+ Foreign: $26,765,154 48.7%
= Worldwide: $54,907,689

CG (and real) Penguin Movies

March of the Penguins (Warner Indepenent, 2005)
Budget $8,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $77,437,223 60.8%
+ Foreign: $49,955,016 39.2%
= Worldwide: $127,392,239


Happy Feet (Warner Brothers, 2006)
Budget $100,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $198,000,317 51.5%
+ Foreign: $186,258,869 48.5%
= Worldwide: $384,259,186

CG Fish Movies

Finding Nemo (Pixar, 2003)
Budget $94,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $339,714,978 39.3%
+ Foreign: $524,911,000 60.7%
= Worldwide: $864,625,978


Sharktale (Dreamworks, 2004)
Budget $75,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $160,861,908 44.2%
+ Foreign: $202,668,288 55.8%
= Worldwide: $363,530,196

CG Fairy Tale Parody Movies

Shrek (Dreamworks, 2001)
Budget $60,000,000

Domestic: $267,665,011 55.3%
+ Foreign: $216,744,207 44.7%
= Worldwide: $484,409,218


Hoodwinked (Weinstein Company, 2005)
Budget $15,000,000 (estimated)

Domestic: $51,386,611 46.9%
+ Foreign: $58,103,417 53.1%
= Worldwide: $109,490,028

( I pulled these numbers from boxofficemojo.com and imdb.com)

All of these bland features made profits, so how idiotic could it be to make bland films?

Visit Marc at his site:

http://duck-walk.blogspot.com/

Who are bland leads aimed at?

I think I have it figured out.

They are sometimes referred to as the "identity character". Like you are supposed to identify with them. But does anybody? Or do we just put up with them so we can get some animated action here and there?


Identity Characters are not Very Identifiable

Who are these bland goody 2 shoes boy characters aimed at?


They can't really be aimed at real boys. No real boy wants to be "good" or normal. Most boys want to be bad. They want to be tough, they want to get away with stuff, they want to skip school, they want to be cool, funny or whatever - anything but middle of the road and bland or good!

Grown up society tries to make us bland (especially today) but most kids are humanity in the raw, and all very different.


Girls like bad boys better than good boys too.

Good boys who are normal, first of all don't really exist in the real world.

The closest thing we have to that are sissies, and not too many people in middle America want to be sissies.

Yet good sissy boys are really common in animated cartoons, and those are the characters that we are supposed to be identifying with.



I don't know about you, but I find that strange and contrary to being "normal". Normal people want adventure, excitement, surprises and charisma from their heroes and celebrities.

So who the heck are these characters aimed at?

Moms Want Boys To Be Good Upstanding Citizens
And they should. That's their job. But it's our job as entertainers to undermine the Moms! Humans need balance. A pure good person won't have any friends when he grows up. He'll be too damn boring.

Walt Disney aimed at Moms, knowing that they would "drag the men in", including the boys. He must have thought - like Marc Deckter does, that shaded protagonists would turn people away-which I find to be an incredible theory completely unsupported by history! I'll put up his "Defense Of Bland" next.

Many animation producers -and animators themselves- still believe this theory, probably not because they've thought a lot about it, but because all animated features have bland characters and that's what they are used to so they just keep doing it by rote.

If you give someone not very creative a job running a creative department, what's the first thing he will do? Take out anything that's creative and unique. Not because he is responsible or a good business person, but because conservative people in charge fear talent and imagination.


To them we are witches that need to be bound up and squeezed just hard enough to let a tiny bit of magic ooze out...but not toooo much or all the screaming demons of fun and imagination and joy will come charging out to destroy them!


What is "Family Entertainment"?

MYTH

I think of it as a general term for entertainment that no one in the family wants to watch. But Moms wants you to watch it so that you will learn valuable lessons about life. They aren't entertained by it either, but they'll watch with you out of duty.

Christian TV shows are the most extreme example of these kinds of shows and many people watch them just to laugh at them. Because it's fun to be bad.

Family sitcoms like "Leave It To Beaver" or "The Partridge Family" are sort of like that too, but not anywhere near as extremely boring as the characters in "family" animated cartoons. Live action characters can't help but have some uniqueness, just because it's almost impossible to be completely average in reality.

Every real person is different. Only in animation can everyone be right in the middle. But what a strange goal for animation.

Most animators insist they are "caricaturing reality", when to my eyes, they seem to be doing the exact opposite, they are taking out the interesting things from life, rather than using the immense potential of our art to draw attention to them and enjoy them to the fullest.

Live Action Blands

I googled for some live action counterparts to the animation bland lead boy character type.The theory of these characters is probably the same as the theory of normal in animation. They are the "identity characters" we project our personalities onto their blank slates and experience the stories through them. I don't agree with this theory at all, but nonetheless I just want to make a point.

Note that they are actually all a little different.Not only do they look different, if you watch their movies and TV shows they actually do have personalities that differ from each other. They can't help it. They are alive. Actors bring their own natural quirks to their roles.
Each boy has his own set of unique expressions and gestures and timings. It would take a super bland and mean director to beat the human nature out of them.

Many of these boys actually had some considerable talent and showmanship.
Some are just plain weird-even though they are supposed to be "normal".

Opie was actually really funny in the first couple seasons of Andy Griffith. He has all kinds of unique and funny reactions. Lots of natural charm.


So far, all these boys are supposed to be your regular every day average "normal" boy next door, but like I said, they are all quite different despite what the writers and producers might want. It's impossible to be the exact middle of anything in nature.

More Specific Boys

Now these boys are very definitely unique. They also appear in movies as the character we are supposed to "identify with". The fact that they are distinct personalities with unique looks and mannerisms did nothing to dull their considerable popularity.

This kid is still quite an entertaining character! Charisma and personality is not a thing to be avoided. It's GOLD if you are lucky enough to recognize and capture it.

Who doesn't love Alfalfa? Do you see yourself as him? Do you aspire to be Alfalfa? probably not too many do. But most people love him.

Except when he gets "undertured" in animation of course. The bland tradition of animation kills even the most charismatic of iconic characters! Who said animation is caricature and exaggeration? Not the folks who argue for blandness on this blog!

Millions of kids must have aspired to be a fatty at one time.

This little fellow is famous everywhere but America for some reason.




Note that in live action, girls have different features than boys.
Not in cartoons though

ANIMATION LOVES BLANDNESS

It's sort of impossible in live action to find a real live human that's exactly in the middle of all boys in the world - hard though some try... Only animation with its limitless imagination can achieve Plato and Walt's ideal of full averageness.


Add glasses to the stock design of a bland and you get the bookish bland.

A tan bland.

Angular bland
Crotch reveal bland

Weiner? meet candle

Here's what happens when live action "Normal" boys grow up.